Week off, work on

This past week during the school break, i worked on my Director's notebook portfolio in all of its aspects. I also got to see a play in NYC and managed to visit actual theatre facilities at a university (with actual lights and real floors).

This is really frustrating... i have a massive writer's block, and i really don't feel like working on 20 pages of pure work. But being all serious and honest, i think this is a great challenge we have taken. Writing an essay is one thing, but developing a portfolio is something else entirely. I sometimes feel like giving up and just handing in whatever i have, but i guess i just have to man up and keep on going.
So far, i'm pretty confident about my job, i think i have produced a fair amount of work, and i did manage to do develop more throughout the break. I still feel like I'm missing something, like my portfolio could be better, or even that it is not of a good enough standard.
What really bothers me is the fact that I'm used to working with a very structured scheme, and i thought the DN had a very defined and structured one. But it turns out that it is incredibly flexible, and i don't like that. Each of the three examples i read were entirely different from one another, and they all followed their own structure. I got to the conclusion that it was pretty much just having all the information needed, without any clear structure whatsoever. I'm not very fond of this, because it makes things very ambigious, and it becomes harder for me to actually lay out all of my ideas.
As of now i've already planned one of my scenes, and have lots of recorded ideas of the third part in my journal. I literally spent a day sketching the stage and some of the costumes. It's really fun actually, and i like the fact that i can let my imagination free. What i don't like is that the second part is very confusing, and none of the examples show either a pattern or what i thought was supposed to be done in that part. So i guess i'll just carry on with what i'm doing.

Something i've learned in further detail is organizing myself. Having two essays and a portfolio for the IB is not an easy task, so i guess i've been improving my organization skills. And i think this is really important not only to complete the work on time for the deadlines, but also to reduce the stress and the pressure. I believe that this skill is useful in the school, life, and even as a theatre maker. Obviously a director has deadlines to complete his work, and obviously creating an entire play takes a lot of time, and thus a lot of organization, for him to be prepared and follow a schedule. I think that i can relate this a lot to the work producing the school play, because we had to organize our works to deal with everything on time.
And i'm not only talking about organization in terms of work, i'm also talking about organizing and setting ideas. Obviously a creative process requires creativity (duh.), and sometimes your imagination flies away and you come up with all these really cool and wonderful ideas to include. But maybe they don't all match, or maybe you think of it in the shower, and then forget. So something i've learned is to keep track of my ideas that come up randomly, and writte them down to remember them. Even so, when i was visiting the drama school, tons of ideas flowed through my mind, so i started to write words on my phone to remember them later. I think this is something that happens not only to directors, but also to writers, producers, designers, etc. They can draw ideas from very simple things, and i think is important to organize them and keep track of them. Maybe some ideas work, maybe they others don't, but who knows they might come up useful anytime soon. I've heard of directors who discart ideas for one play, but then use it for another, and i think that i something i could do with the ideas i don't use for one of the scenes, and use it in the next.
And i think something really interesting, and a technique i find very useful, is to draw the images that come up in your mind. I think that as a director reading a play for the first time, it is useful to draw the characters, some of the important objects described in the play, the setting, etc. to get a physical picture of your vision, and what you want to achieve. I recon it helps to make your vision clearer and actually approachable to evaluate if it can be done, or if it works and matches with the play. I believe that as a theatre maker, someone who works with visual performances, it becomes better to record the images in your mind than just recording the sole reactions.
Speaking of which, i've had a hard time putting my ideas together, because there are so many and they don't all match together. So i've been improving my judging skills on the ideas, supported by the organization skills to put them in the most logical order, and then evaluating to see what could be useful and what is just garbagge.
Something i've noticed, is that a director is always looking for new inspirations, new ideas, new things to try. Before, when we watched plays, i was only looking at the aspects as a student, to later analyze in the play review. But now that i'm working on being a director myself, when i watched the play in NYC, i was noticing more the ideas that could apply to my own play. I've been reflecting on how directors do this, and i think this is why the DN asks us to compare and relate to previous theatre experiences. They want us to dig the ideas from things that actually existed and we have seen. And now that i watched a play with that in mind, all i could think was "maybe i could use the light in a similar way". And probably that's what directors do in real life, they look and evaluate to inspire themselves.
What i still struggle to understand, is how do directors take the vision and make it real? Now i know the DN is not going to happen, but i've been wondering about it. How do they manage to bring all of those processed ideas onto the stage? I remember how we did it in the school play, and it was not an easy job. But we had standards and limitations to follow, so we knew exactly when we were going off chances. However, how do directors know that? The budget? If so, when they know they won't have the money and decide to go another direction, wouldn't that take something off their vision? Could it make a huge difference? And how do they manage to transmit their ideas to the designers, artists, and builders? I mean, a picture in your head is not the same in someone else's head (this is why TOK is useful). And what happens if he has so many ideas he looses track of his initial vision and concept?

Alice

"It's no use going back to yesterday, because i was a different person then"- Lewis Carroll
Alicia is a ballet performance based on Lewis Carroll's famous novel Alice in Wonderland, choreographed by Humberto Canessa and directed by Pepe Corzo. Presented in El Gran Teatro Nacional, the play portrays the story of Alice, whose innocent behaviour leads her to an amazing encounter with Wonderland. Being this a ballet performance, rather than an acted play, dance takes upon the main role to portray an unspoken story. Next year's school play will be our own adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, so i believe having watch a professional performance was very useful to inspire ourselves in order to draft ideas for next year.

The play was divided into two acts, with five to six scenes per act. Although i haven't read the novel itself, i think that the way they handled the story was good enough, cutting the first act with Alice's first encounter with the Red queen, so I think that we could use a very similar structure for next year. However there are two things i would change and think are essential for our adaptation. I believe that the first act should end with a sort of cliff hanger, and a rising action that catches the audience more, something i felt that the play didn't achieve at the end of their first act. Another thing is that i believe that the Mad Hatter should make an appearance during the first act, because i think he is one of the most dynamic and interesting characters, in fact he is the most iconic of the play. So i think that unlike the ballet, should we include the Hatter in at least one scene of act one, the play would gain a very interesting character to play with. Nonetheless, i find it very useful to use their structure as a guideline for ours.
One thing I strongly believe is that we should not follow the same story as the ballet and the first novel. I think that the second novel, Through the looking glass has a lot of interesting characters and ideas presented, that i think are worth using. Besides, i find it rather odd if we follow the same old Disney sort of thing.
Something that i really like, and i think could work beautifully for next year's play, was how they begun the play. Alice was sitting alone on the stage and a clock was ticking, for which she was solely illuminated forming a sort of circle and casting a shadow on the screen opposite of her. I think that it would be interesting to start our own play in a very similar way, having Alice sitting on the stage alone playing with her doll, whilst the sound of the clock ticks loudly. However i believe that unlike the ballet, we shouldn't include an actual visual of a clock at the back because it takes away a bit of the mystery, as well as not using the screen that splits the stage into two, for obvious reasons. The use of the light in this sequence was very interesting as it drew the focus onto Alice and her movements, which i think we should do equally.
I think another very interesting scene was how they did Alice's fall through the rabbit hole, which i was already wondering how they would do it. They used several dancers dressed with patterns, who carried Alice and did a sort of dance/movement sequence that portrayed the fall. I think that we will not be able to do something similar as it seems a bit confusing and difficult (our actors are not that strong please...). So i think the most reasonable thing to do is to have Alice fall through the trapdoor (no pun intended). Yet i think we could do a very interesting sequence with the lights in a similar way they did. As well as using the real life character, just like they did, to stand around and act as memories or "ghosts".

As mentioned before, i think one of the most interesting and iconic characters of the play is the Mad Hatter, and i felt a bit disappointed on how they handled his character, because it only appeared at the very end, and had a minimum role that did not stand out as much. I think we could use in more interesting ways, and give him a rather bigger role. Something i found interesting is that there was a second level just after the main stage, and during the entire play, no character used it to dance, as there was more than sufficient space in the main stage, However, during Alice's meeting with the Hatter, both character's do cross to the extension and begin to dance, as if they entered a different dimension. I think we could do something very similar in the sense that the Hatter should be able to further connect or approach the audience, as part of his characterization. Speaking of which, i think the character lacked a lot of physicality to characterize his craziness, after all he is mad. So i believe we need to work on having a good portrayal of this character.
One of the character's that intrigued me the most was the worm guy (worm dude), because regardless of the fact that he was the best dancer (in my opinion), i think the way they portrayed him was incredibly interesting. They used various dancers that would sometimes attach to the main dancer, and make the movements like an actual worm. I think we could have the worm be a portrayed by three or even four actors, that work together to portray the movement and the body of the worm. I think his physicality full of curvy movements was very accurate to the insect, and i think we should aim to do something similar.
One character i enjoyed, yet wasn't very amused by, was the Red Queen. I think that the characterization was very interesting, portraying a failed dancer of some sort, and a burlesque character. However i think we shouldn't portray the character as skinny as she was on the ballet, because it takes away a bit of Carroll's description, and i believe it gives a further sense of ridicule. Still, i think that just as the ballet, the Red Queen should be the comic relieve, in the sense that the audience should make fun of her.
I believe that one of the best characterizations was that of the rabbit, who had very nervous and rapid body movements, as well as androgynous movements. I think that we could take inspiration on this portrayal, as it fully shows the character's intentions and ideology that Carroll explains in his book. I think we could even take inspiration on some of his dance moves, to give a further insight into the character's rabbit side. Yet i believe it is necessary for the character to have a big pocket watch, rather than a wrist one like the one they used in the ballet.

In terms of the costumes, i think they were amazing, and managed to show the impressive and crazy side of Wonderland, as well as the down to earth side of the real world. I think we could take mimic the designs of the human characters, although i think we could use dull and lifeless colors, rather than the vivid ones they used on the ballet, as it would show the dullness of reality and further contrast with Wonderland. Likewise, i think that the colors we use for Wonderland and its characters should be very vivid and lively.
The one costume i really hated was that of the Cat. I think the use of foam tubes was very interesting, but it did not reach the same standard as the other costumes. I believer we should not design something similar, and should seek to do the opposite.
I think that Alice's costumes was very dull and simple, and would have like to see something more interesting or lively. I think that we should go a different path and do something different to the ballet and the movie, yet keeping the blue color (i like blue). Still i believe we should have a costume in between the livelihood of Wonderland and the deadness of the real world. I though the contrast of the blue and the pink from the skirt did not work, and just made the character very childish.
I really liked the design of the rabbit, and i think we should keep the vest type of costume, and the white colors, as well as the ears. Yet i think that we shouldn't use the black patterns, as i thought that they made the rabbit look like a cow instead,
Although i think that the worm's costume was rather simple for the dancer to move, i think that we should do something much bigger and greater. Using make up and some patterns, like the one his costume had, we could create a very lively worm.
As i said before, i think that the slim and cartoony costume the Red Queen wore was not very amusing, and did not fully evoke the character's burlesque ideology. So i think that we could work by taking inspiration from Elizabethan and Victorian dresses, and using them with lively red patterns, making her more visually intriguing for the audience.
I think we could work with distorted versions of the old fashionable dresses, when it comes to the designs of the courtmembers and such. I think we could create a very lively and interesting image with all these distorted and visual costumes alongiside exaggerated make ups, that evoke a sense of satire to the scene.

I think that the visual effects of the ballet were incredibly interesting, specially the one with the box when Alice grew big. Still i don't think they will work for us, and we shouldn't realu any of those ideas. Also, we don't have the technology or the money to do those sort of things...

There wasn't really a lot of scenery on stage, as the characters needed enough space to dance. During the scenes in the real world, they used trees, and we shouldn't really use that, yet we could set a very mundane or common stage, with dull colors, to portray reality.
However, i found incredibly cool the use of strage shapes and patterns during the fall and other scenes of distortion, which undoubtly gave a visual performance of fantasy. I think we could inspire ourselves in using distorted scenery, where usual objects have funny shapes and such, in order to show the fantasy of Wonderland.
The same goes with the lights, they obviously have a lot more lighting equipment at their disposal, and are able to create further effects, unlike us. Yet we could use the same ideas of the combination of unusual colors to light the stage duing Wonderland.

I'm really excited for next year, and i think that watching the ballet was really worthy, as we were able to start visualizing what we want to do in the future. Brace yourself Alice.

Director's Note Origins

This past week, we began the process of the Director's Note, or well at least the demo. We read the IB's guidelines and decided how we were going to work until the end of the year. This will be a long process...

Looking back at the beginning of the year, i thought the DN project was going to be quite fun, and rather easy. However, now that i have seen the actual rubrics and guidelines, i have come to realize y was plain wrong. I think now that we are getting closer to the end of the year, and the start of next one, we are doing things closer to what the IB requires, which in this case is the External Assesment. I now realize that what i have been told about extensive works and countless hours of working during the IB are actually true, and it makes me feel both exited and nervous for what this challenge will be like, or well, would have been like.
Personally, i am feeling rather excited for the DN demo, because now i can let my imagination loose and just create whatever i want. I think it is the IB project that gives you the most freedom and felxibility to create and imagine, so im looking forward to it.
I do feel a bit nervous about how extensive this work is, and i'm not sure how well will i complete the 20 page project. Plus, the fact that we have to do it during the hardest weeks of school, which are the final trimester dates and end of year exam weeks, makes things a ton more difficult. I really do not know how i will manage.
I think that i have to keep on working hard, and organizing myself, because this is IB.

The closer i got to being a director was the school play. I never truly got to fully direct a scene, but acting as producer and creator gave me the necessary skills i need to complete this project demo.
One of the main aspects is the research skills, which will serve for the first part. For the school play we had to research about Kathakali and the Ramayan itself, learning about the context and traditions in order to understand and have further insight into what we were going to do. Now, the work goes a little further, as we need to research every detail that seems relevant of the context of the play, whereas is the author himself or the historical and geographical context. We have already a lot of research of Streetcar named Desire (the play we chose to work with), because of the English lessons. However, i think we need to combine both the skills we learned by doing the Ramayan and what we already know from Enlgish, to go one step further. I think that this is very important for a director to do because he needs to be aware of all apects of the play before he begins working on it, which also applies to any type of creative work that starts upon an existing work, such as adapting a play.
Another aspect is the creation of a concept and a vision for the adaptation. If we hadn't done the play at the beginning of the year, i think i would die doing the DN. This is because it took us about 2 weeks to define a concept, and we didn't have much experience to do it. But now, i can work with my previous learning and skill to shape both the concept and the vision. I even think that i can use my experience in all the plays to imagine and create upon that. Plus, i think it is important to combine, as a director or theatre maker, both the research and the creative exploration to produce a powerful and workable vision for the play.
We still haven't gotten that much into detail of the process, because we just started and have only read the guidelines and rubrics, barely begining the research work. So i think there is still a lot to learn and to explore in the near future. Still, i think this is great practice for next year at the play and at the real IB product. I think it is nice to sit on the director's chair, and let ourself be the creator's of what we want to see.

Embracing the inner clown

Clown is a very distinctive theatre style, which proposes a certain aperture from within the actor, letting the audience inside the actor's mind in a fun and rather childish way. And this past weeks, we have been working towards training ourselves in the clown style, in order to use it for the One Act Play.

At first, i was not very fond of the idea of exploring clown style, and i thought we were wasting the opportunity to do something meaningful as our last play. But i guess i found myself being wrong, since this is the only style that can actually let me say one last goodbye to the stage at school.
I guess, when we first started working on clown, i was sort of thrilled by it, i felt myself being a child once again, and i even got to forget the fact that i was supposed to be acting on stage. I was just being careless and childish once again, playing around the stage along the various exercises we did. But i think that is the point right? To embrace the inner child and let it come out to play, to forget about everything else and live in the now.
I think that one of the things that i found very difficult was to be completly honest, and forget about acting and concentrate on being yourself. As a very introverted person, someone who does not show his emotions very often, then it became a bit strange for me to be myself on stage, and let all of my emotions be true and honest. I think that although it may sound incredibly easy, it might as well be the most difficult part of the clown style. As someone who acts to hide himself, it became difficult to show himself and be honest in front of the audience.
I really liked the exercise were we had to walk in a circle and then say "my name is __ and the world is round", and do it as many times as possible until there was nothing but full honesty. I couldn't really tell the difference to when i was acting and when i was not, until i felt myself get loose after several tries.
Another thing i really enjoyed was the constant space for improvisation. There were several moments in which there was a huge awkward silence, and everyone was staring right at you. Personally i felt very uncomfortable, and it made me uneasy to think that they were judging me. But i guess that's when the clown has space to actually embrace his surroundings and play with it in the most creative ways. I tried to fill the void with a few ideas, but sometimes, when there were more than two of us on stage, there were too many ideas thrown to fill the gap, and it became rather confusing and disorganized.
I think, whilst exploring the clown, i began to discover several things about myself, and it sort of freaked me out. I became scared to know that i was showing these traits and emotions i tend to hide, on stage. But i feel like there is no better way to end this journey than to be true to myself.

I think the main ideas i learned from this clown experience are the rules of clowning, and how they change you.
To be aware of the surroundings brings that inner curiousity out to play, and leaves space for creativity. In theatre it is necesary to know what your surrounding looks like, in order to use it in your performance, as well as helping to be able to come up with something when in need to improvise. Furthermore, in life, it is important to be aware of what is around you, to know if it is something good or something bad for you, to be able to explore further away from your comfort zone.
Then, to live in the now, the present, creates a sense of importance to what you are currently doing, to live the performance and forget about the rest. I think that this idea is extremely important and equally applicable in both life and in theatre. To be able to live in the present, to forget and forgive, and not look forward, just stay in the now and enjoy. To be able to see yourself doing what you're doing and be able to enjoy every last bit of the performance. Personally, that is what i feel when im on stage, how everything that used to matter, does not anymore, and the only important thing is that im standing there, leaving everyone in awe. Thus, the clown must do the same, but take it one step further, and invite the audience to live with him in the moment. For them to forget their own problems and concentrate on the clown, to laugh and relieve and experience all of these emotions that the clown is feeling.
Also, the rule of staying positive and keep trying no matter what is an essential part of clowning, and being able to stay positive and honest. In life and in theatre as a whole, there are and will be millions of stepbacks and bumps, just like the few hundred ones we hit during our production of the play. But the clown teaches you to embrace these mistakes, shake them off and keep on moving forward as positive as possible. I think that through clowning, you actually get to experience all of your insecurities and mistakes all over again, but it tells you to leave them behind, and it makes you break past them. The satirical side of the clown, helps you look at all these problems from a different perspective, in order to laugh at them, invite the audience to laugh too, and cast them away.
I feel like there was no better style that we could've chosen for this last play altogether. In a way, we learned a lot about each other and ourselves, and let everyone inside our deepest side. At first, my clown used to be very sassy and rebellious, but i began to discover that he was that way in order to hide his insecurities, my insecurities. I guess that for the last time i get to be on stage with my ensemble, as a student, it is hard to say goodbye. But the clown helps you do it, as if a child was saying goodbye to his grandma or something. It helped every one of us, to laugh at it and see it as the last time we play together, rather than the sad reality. It helped us live through the production of the play, and most importantly through the performance. To stand and forget the rest, and just know that the other five are there with you no matter what. To live and enjoy every single moment. It may sound very cheesy, but the clown helped me say goodbye. Because, in any other case with a different tradition, i would have acted as usual and just left heart broken. But now, the clown lets me live every last moment, and lets me embrace with joy my insecurity, but most importantly, it lets me be the best side of me, the most positive and cheerful, and be leave with an honest goodbye. However, my question still remains unanswered, what happens next? What happens when the clown hiddes again, is it dormant until we wake him up to play again? Can he resurface anytime? And what happens if im unable to open up during the actual performance? During class and rehearsals its easy since im with people i trust and no audience, but what if i dont get to be as honest? Will i still be clowning if im not fully honest? Will i be able to say goodbye?

The Curse of the Broken Left Foot

This past week we've been working on practicing the entire play in one run, specially the final battle scene, as well as working on the last stages of each design area of production. The problem is... we've been cursed.

I am desperate, we all are. We are two weeks away from the opening night, and we have five actresses with a broken foot! And worst of all, its the same foot for all of them! I am starting to get nervous about it, and even scared that another actress will suffer from the same curse. Of course, this is over exaggerating the matters, there is no curse whatsoever, but the entire problem is very concerning.
It calms me a lot that all of these actresses are giving their best, regardless of their broken foot. They are coming to the rehearsals and trying their very best, in order to avoid messing with the other actors' work. And i think this is very valuable and important, since a missing actor or an unmotivated actor messes with the entire scene, in which case the cursed girls give their best to pretend as if nothing had happened. I'm also happy to see them updating us and trying to calm the other actors, as well as remaining calm themselves, to avoid stress and the desperation and feeling of failure that comes when you hit a bump.
What worries me the most is the fact that Siu is one of the cursed actresses, and her being the antagonist, it is a hard blow. Im very concerned about her well beign, and the fact that kalaripayattu demands a lot of physical strenght, that she might not be able to achieve having this problem.
I'm trying to keep myself concentrated on the matter, but it becomes very hard and frustrating. In previous years, as just another member of the cast, i worried about the person and the play itself, but never gave to much importance to the matter, as the producer's would fix everything. Well now i'm the producer, and it is I who has to fix everything. Still, there is nothing to fix, im not a doctor or Mr. Miyagi with healing powers or something, i'm just another student. But i guess that's were my work as a producer comes in, i have to work with the injured people for them to feel as comfortable as possible, and keep an eye on them to avoid further injures and to make sure they are healing, as well as mantaining the cast members calmed and confident that things will turn out the way we intend them to, just like previous producers did with me.

I think that, one of the main things that i learned this week was that there are always bumps in the road, specially towards the end of the entire process. I've always known that, and something happens in every play the closer we get to the opening night, so it's pretty natural. But i've never really encountered it directly, because it wasn't me who had to deal with the problem. So i have been reflecting on what my role is as a producer, and i got to the conclusion that i have to be the calmest one, and the one to transmit that energy so that nobody freaks out. As i said before, if i were to freak out, the other actors would too, and same goes for the other producers. Thus, if i remain calm and transmit that confidence that things will be ok, then the actors will remain the same. Still, i have to push the actors even further to work harder, so that the issue can be avoided. And i think this applies directly to real professional production, and even projects unrelated to theatre, the one in charge has to be the calmest, and help things be fixed as soon as possible.
I've been wondering a lot about what other types of bumps we could encounter. I mean, i would love it if there were none, but we have to be realistic. And it is not because of a curse or anything, but because that's how things are. Now i do think about, could we avoid them? And how? I'm pretty sure most bumps are unavoidable, so how do we deal with them directly? And how do we precautions to avoid bigger damage? And what type of precautions?
Last week i reflected about the trust requirements of Kalaripayattu, and the concequences it brought. Well, now that my fighting partner got hurt, i can see the concequences in more depth. I think that, because we managed to control the hesitating moments, and master our mutual trust, we started to neglect some of the outer factors that could affect us. Thus, when she fell, we both knew it was because we were to confident that our work was perfect, and we forgot about external factors. Thus i wonder once again, how can we recover this mutual trust? Once someone goes through this type of trauma, hesitating appears, so how can we erase it again? More importantly, will we have to adapt the fight? Will she even be able to fight? I think that in professional theatre, this happens sometimes, but how do they deal with it?

Kalaripayattu with Master Valentina

This week we worked on the final battle scene, which puts us one step closer to the end of this process. Moreover, given that kathakali theatre, and indian theatre as such, uses kalaripayattu to stage the battles, we had Valentina come help us by teaching us the basics of kalaripayattu, and kerala acrobatics.

Ok, forget i ever complaint about my body aching due to kathakali, THIS, is the real deal. Kalaripayattu, demands a lot of physical energy and proposes difficult body movements and positions, that make your body numb. My arms are full of bruises, i almost twisted my ankle, and the skin on my feet has been torn apart.
Now, one very important thing i felt, is the confidence of wanting to do things right. This is the last school play i act in (not counting the One Act Play), and the final battle is the most epic moment, so we want to do it right. Hence, even if the positions hurt like hell, i think i was persistent and kept on trying to improve. I'm obviously not perfect at it, but i think I'm improving massively at my acrobatic and stage combat skills, which is extremely important to achieve an epic final battle. I can also see that same behaviour on behalf of most of the actors, specially Siu, who is also motivated by the fact this is her last appearance in the play. We are fighting partners, and we encourage ourselves together to try again and again, faster and faster each time, and we tend to not hold back (ergo the bruises).
I've also been feeling more relaxed about how things will turn out, because battles tend to be really dumb in plays, and they look awful. But this time, given the style, i can see a more realistic battle, with less faking and more actual acrobatics, which makes me confident and relax that it will turn out as i wanted it to.
One thing that bothers me a lot, is that some actors are not giving their best (once again), to learn and try these positions. They complaint about it being difficult, and hurting, and do not bother to try and improve. This kind of behaviour is what makes the process slower, because them taking longer to actually do things right, due to their stubbornness, slows us all down. I am not happy with these people, and i try to be more supportive to them and teach them, but they keep on being stubborn about it.

Kalaripayattu has some very important moral and theatrical bases, that i think are worth knowing and following. For starters, stage combat, and thus Kalaripayattu, is based on mutual trust; the attacker has to give his full strenght and actually punch trusting that the defender will defend himself, and viceversa; the defender has to trust that the attacker is fully punching and he has to block it. That way, no one gets hurt, and the battle can be performed correctly. I think that this knowledge can be applied in real life and in theatre in many aspects. For example, all of us as producers have to trust each other in knowing that everyone is doing their work, for us to move on accordingly to schedule. We also have to trust, as actors, that all of the other cast members are practicing their parts and lines, for the scene to actually work and play smoothly. Similarly, i believe that in a bigger theatre production, producers, directors, and actors have to trust each other to put together the entire play, as everyone has a different but necessary role to contribute in the process of creation. What bothers me is that, we don't always have a good realtion with another actor, or producer, or whatever, so how can this mutual trust be established? I mean, i believe one must suck it up and work, but it's never the same. A single hesitating moment of trust can end up in a huge mess, specially when we are dealing with acrobatics. So how do we build this trust? In Kalaripayattu, the actors work together their whole lives, and thus this trust is built. But we have only worked with our cast members for a couple of months, so how can this full trust comitment be estavlished in such a short time? In my case, Siu and i have worked together since our first play and in class, apart from knowing each other for many years, so we trust each other. However, i sometimes feel how she flinches, and hesitates because she gets scared. I mean, i aslo get scared that the acrobatic will fail and we might hurt each other, but i try to maintain and transmit this trust so everything moves along correctly. Still, we've fallen a few times, or hurt each other because of that small millisecond of hesitation. So, even if we trust each other, how can we avoid hesitation?
One of the things that caught my attention the most, is the fact that in Kalaripayattu, everyone works together as a team, and not alone. As Valentina said, everyone is as good as the worst one. And i think this concept is applicable to every type of team work. For example, if we have a scene with three great actors, and a couple of terrible ones (not trying to sound mean, ok?) then the entire scene will not work as well, because the energy might be lost, or there might be a few problems. And i think this is important because in works such as this, that involve working in an ensamble, it is important to trust and work together, to improve together and move forward, not leaving behind the worst one of us. However, i do believe that sometimes one might be better than the other one at something. For example, i was better at the back turning jump acrobatic, and Siu was better as the balancer, so we worked upon that and made the acrobatic work, even though our skills on both excercises were different.
But, the concept that was simply the most interesting one to me, was the ideal of balancing forces to work together. When working on fighting, one must balance the forces and strenght between each other, to fake the punching and make it look realistic without hurting each other. The concept of how there is a point where opposing forces meet and balance each other was striking to me. I think that has to be applied in real life a lot, in everything that concerns the balance of forces. The strenghts of one reinforce the weaknesses of the other. When acting, support is needed, and if one's energy is greater and opposes the others, then the scene fails. Thus, the energy of every actor must meet and balance the entire scene, for it to be succesful. But how can we achieve this? Some people (like me), have very strong and repelling energy, and others have very weak ones? How can we work to improve it? Siu and i balanced our body forces by trying over and over again the acrobatic, so should this apply to scenes in general?

8 down, one more to go

This past week, we worked on building the last scene of the play, which presents the coronation of Rama and the plot twist of our open ending. Even though we are still missing the Final battle scene, we have succesfully built the entire play.

Working with almost the entire cast in one scene is very very hard. The final scene has four main moments, the narration, the king's entrance, the toast, and the open ending. Therefore, not all of the actors were present in one of the parts we were working on, having to do nothing until we begin setting up their part. I felt a bit useless the first time we were rehearsing, as we were building the narration, which was the longest and hardest part, because it involved a dance. So i really didn't have anything to do, because even if i was directing, there were already other 4 people doing that job. So i figured, maybe we should practice stage combant and Purulia Cchau with the monkeys.
The group of the monkeys dissapointed me a lot, supposedly they had already worked these animal positions with Giselle, but none of them truly knew them correctly, which is their fault for not revising what we taught. On top of that, they couldn't hold the positions for the time we wanted them to. I understand that they are not professionals and don't have super built bodies and Hulk strenght, but we've been working for two months now on balance, holdign legs-based positions, and so on and so forth, and they still can't hold them! I'm not mad, but either they are not trying hard enough, or we are terrible teachers (NO.).
One of the key aspects we taught the monkeys about stage combat, is the idea that confidence and trust is key for it to work. Some of the kids were more excited about doing a kick and a punch, that they were probably just end up hurting others and themselves. I felt that the monkeys understood what it meant, specially as we tried a couple of slaps, and they trusted each other into what the movement meant and what was going to happen. Still, some of them kept being childish and kept on and on about them wanting to punch "awesomely".
Personally i think that the scene was built pretty quickly, and that everything went very smoothly. Now that i think about it, the entire play was built relatively smoothly, the real thing came when we corrected and improved scene by scene. I thought that the most diffult thing was to impose the disipline the actors needed, and to bring everything together.
I think that, doing this scene, the most difficult thing for me was the love dovey part, because i really don't have a heart whatsoever and my soul is as dark as the night, so i guess it was a real challenge. And because Sita, which is supposed to be my wife, is my friend, it becomes a little ackward, but i guess we've come to terms with it.

Being a director is a lot of work, specially when trying to built uo a scene with a lot of actors. It is key for each scene to know the main actions, the structure and the characters to be able to produce it correctly. In this case, we had to concentrate on each of the four moments separately, as they involved the same characters, and build up bit by bit. I discovered that when directing, and specially sketching, a scene it is important to divide it in parts and work on them one by one until they are of a good standard, before moving on into the next one, so that it becomes easier to correct later. Likewise, a director must know to balance his time to sketch all of the scenes.
Given our problem of the excess in actors, who were basically sitting down doing nothing, and us trying to teach them the bases of stage combat, i learned that sometimes it is best if they just sit and watch. This is because, some of the actors caused noise and interfered with the scene, because they were screaming during the training. I also realized that, because they were watching, they were learning and getting to know the play and the scene better, for them to analyze and work upon what they saw. Moreover, if they know how the first part plays out, it becomes easier to get the mood and tone of the scene, and to be aware of the cue to enter.
I've been wondering a lot about how to convey feelings, specially those which we don't know. Personally, i've never been in love like Rama was with Sita (i don't even have a heart so...), which makes it difficult to me to relate it with a past experience, as there is none! I can have a certain approach, but i think is up to the actor to explore in different ways to make it more convinving, given that there is no past experience to relate and use as reference. So i wonder, how does the actor look for stimulus, if there is no personal reference? Will an external reference be enough? Or will the actor lack that special something that makes it more believable?